Quadrant Collapse
by GrandHaberdasher
Summary: Rose and Vriska are definitely in some form of romance. The trouble is, they can't seem to stay in one quadrant. Slight AU.


It all started when Vriska burst in on Rose and Dave and demanded humanity lessons. Or looking at it another way, it all started when Terezi was able to talk Vriska down from charging after the First-Guardian-powered Jack Noir, or perhaps when Aranea scratched herr session, or even with whatever session spawned the trolls' universe or you know what? Figuring out when something began is hard enough without Sburb's patented Weird Time Shit.

It all started when Vriska burst in on Rose and Dave and demanded humanity lessons. Or rather, humaaaaaaaanity lessons. They were understandably nonplussed. Dave was the first to speak.

"Okay, first off you need to not be grey. We've got kind of a wide variety of skin tones to choose from, but grey is not on the menu." The metaphor would no doubt been extended into utter incomprehensibility had not Rose cut in.

"Might I enquire as to the reason for this sudden xenophilia? I was given to understand that you consider any deviation from Vriska Serket to be a lessening by definition."

"I figured that since I'm such a faaaaaaaailure as a troll I should try out this whole human thing. At least there's less stabbing cripples and getting stabbed by blind girls if I get it wrong."

"I suppose I must commend you for embarking on this quest for self-improvement. Human society has two methods for dealing with those as sanguine about the hands as yourself. You might be incarcerated in the prison system to be surrounded by the antisocial and frequently violent while kept under strict watch by armed custodians in the hope that this would reform you. The alternative method involves you exposing your deepest, darkest secrets to a highly trained professional so that they may be revealed to derive from your secret lust for your parent. While this meteor contains no facilities suitable for use as a prison, I should make a more than adequate psychoanalysist. Tell me about your lusus."

"Well, she was an enormous spiderbitch who kept bugging me to feed her trolls. Talk about high-maintenance."

"Now that's fucked up. Holy shit, Rose. This might be the first time in the history of incest-obsessed shrinks that that question was actually useful."

"Mr. Strider, I must insist that you recuse yourself so that the healing process can advance uncommented upon."

Had anyone asked Vriska what she thought about this human psychoanalysis stuff, she might have characterized it a weird human moirail thing. On the other hand, she might not. After all, she was trying to learn human ways, and she knew they didn't even have quadrants because they were weird like that. For their parts, Rose and Dave were unused enough to thinking in terms of troll romance that it never occurred to them that Rose and Vriska might be developing pale feelings for each other.

Mind you, after days of Rose spending the greater portion of her time prying past Vriska's prickly, self-aggrandizing shell, she started catching herself watching the play of muscles beneath exotic grey skin, or the bounce of dramatically flipped hair, or the twinkle in that fascinating seven-pupiled eye with an affection that was hardly pale at all.

With the pair spending so much time engaged in private and intimate conversation, temptation was ever-present, and Rose eventually decided that admitting her feelings for Vriska would be a lesser evil to their meddler-patient relationship than her continual distraction. Vriska responded to the prospective loss of her moirail to another quadrant with her typical tact and romantic aplomb by initiating a few rounds of strife and absconding. They spent the sleep cycle stewing in resentment on opposite sides of the meteor. The next "morning" (or "evening" from a troll's perspective), Rose was able to admit to herself that she had behaved very unprofessionally and should make amends. Vriska, on the other hand, had industriously worked herself into a caliginous frenzy over the perceived betrayal. Vriska being Vriska, her frenzy was a notably vocal one, and her rants about the perfidy of stuck-up human bitches attracted an audience by the time she and Rose met each other in the middle of the meteor. Rose's attempt at reconciliation was cut off before it could begin by a rather savage kiss, which she eagerly reciprocated as soon as she realized what was going on.

They broke off, panting and ignoring Dave and Terezi's mutters about how much the spectacle would be improved if they had some heated grain kernels to eat while watching. Vriska restarted her tirade as soon as she had most of her wits back.

"Lousy, goddamn human tricking me by being all nice and understanding. I'm on to you now, you evil little bitch! You can't manipulate the empress of manipulation!"

Rose put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Ah, this would be the caliginous strain of romance. It occurs to me that the normalization of this juxtaposition of lust and antipathy would go a great deal towards explaining your collection of neuroses. A shame this did not occur to me earlier."

"You think I'm crazy because of blackrom? Oh man, Rose. You act like you know everything, but you're really as clueless as a grub about most stuff, aren't you. Gog, I pity you for it."

"Pity? A remarkable reaction coming from one whose session-spanning stratagem ended in abject failure and ignominy."

Further sloppy interspecies flirting was averted by Karkat interrupting by slamming a sickle into a convenient table. "I could just gouge out my thinkpan and end the hellish agony of listening to you nook sniffers utterly fail to grasp aspects of romance perfectly comprehended by the newest wrigglers. Lucky for you, I happen to be a fucking saint up here on my flogging jut, so I will graciously instruct you in how not to be complete and utter fuckwits in this one aspect of your lives. The appropriate response would be to get down on your knees and beg for the opportunity to polish my bone bulge in gratitude, but I know better than to expect any glimmer of appreciation from any of you festering band of pus sacks. Now, easily half of all romcoms would be problem-free tales of cuddlepiles and whimsy if the parties involved would just send a whistle through their fucking windholes about what's bothering them. Rose, you go first. What are you hoping to get out of this relationship?"

Back against the wall of the room, a coolkid turned to a legislacerator and quietly asked, "When are you going to point out to him that he's in one of your weird alien threesomes with them?"

"Never. It'll be funnier if he realizes he's ashen for them on his own."


End file.
